24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

24hrs at the Milan Furniture Fair – Via Montenapoleone. Here are some of the people and things I saw in less than 24 hours in Milan during the Salone del Mobile. For the occasion Via Montenapoleone was hung with tons of colorful lampshades to mark the biennial of the Euroluce Fair which takes place during Furniture Fair week.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Spazio Rosanna Orlandi – Baccarat – Jaime Hayon. "The Baccarat Room" at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi overlooking the garden, looked fabulous. The Crystal Candy Set designed by Jaime Hayon couldn’t have found a better stage setting. With these pieces, Jaime Hayon wanted to replicate the richness of fresh tropical fruit using crystal in a variety of textures and thicknesses. Fruity inspirations are mixed with gemlike features: pineapples, pomegranates, golf balls and water drops are some of the ideas explored.

Photograph courtesy Baccarat

Harcourt Lolly. Just one of the beautiful vases and jars designed by Jaime Hayon for Baccarat from The Crystal Candy Set. This one is called Harcourt Lolly, it’s made in clear crystal and is part of a limited and numbered edition of twenty-five pieces.

Photograph by N. Klunder courtesy Baccarat

The Artist Designer – Jaime Hayon. In Jaime, you can almost hear the word “gem.” And that’s a good way to characterize Spanish artist and designer Jaime Hayon. Half-conquistador, half-imp, this adventurer of design embraces life with an extraordinary creative zest, an immediate empathy for his nearest and dearest, and an infectious vitality.

Photograph by N. Klunder courtesy Baccarat

A detail. Jaime’s improvised drawing desk at the Baccarat factory workshop. Note his notebook in the foreground.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

photograph by Quasar Fotografia

Inside – Cin Cin. Cin Cin is a freestanding washbasin with a light. It is designed by Silvio Stefani and Paolo Miatto for Inside, a new lighting company debuting in Milan this year for the first time. The shape and the material, pewter, bring to mind a medieval chalice. The concealed LED lighting under the bowl emphasizes the shaping of the stem.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Skitsch. Renato Preti is the founder and CEO of the new furniture and accessories company Skitsch. Photographed at the opening of its flagship store on Via Monte di Pieta, Preti said “Everyone – in his own way – is a designer in everyday life. And we realize more and more that being surrounded by beautiful, well-designed things helps us to live better and be more positive.
This is the concept behind Skitsch. We have asked 28 Italian and international well-known and emerging designers to create products that combine maximum quality and functionality with a clear reason why as well as a strong dose of creativity, under a totally Italian aesthetic, artistic and productive guidance.
With the same criteria, we also selected the best existing design products available on the market today to be able to offer a complete and versatile assortment that would stimulate ideas and curiosity and let people create their own space according to their own personal style and taste. Yet all of these products had to share the same level of research, quality, and design found in all high-end products. Last but not least, we have done everything possible to reduce impact on the environment by choosing the most eco-friendly techniques and materials and by working closely with Lifegate to reach ‘zero impact’ on the environment very soon.
We are convinced that the development of Skitsch will make for more and more people easier and more pleasant to surround themselves with beautiful and exciting products of outstanding design.”

Seen at Skitsch – Jeffrey Bernett – Love Seat. New York designer, Jeffrey Bernett kindly sits on his Love Seat designed for Skitsch.

Seen at Skitsch. Cristina Morozzi, art director for Skitsch is being interviewed. “After many years spent pursuing good design, searching and documenting the work of new talents, collecting information on brand new ideas, some sort of elation is felt when you are offered the opportunity to turn part of this legacy into real. I just thought the project of Skitsch, conceived by Renato Preti, was ideal to gather original and stimulating projects by a variety of personalities. The collection formula, based on design quality rather than on the identity of a style, allows to give voice to great stand-alone personalities, to implement projects characterized by a strong independent identity, to develop ideas that are still in embryo. It allows to combine together established and emerging names that believe in projects with a “reason why”. I favoured pieces that have a feeling, those that are born from an original idea, that perform a function, that are built through a process. I encouraged the designers to freely express their poetics, to work above the lines. With Renato, I share very special aesthetic emotions, and this allowed me to use my instinct.”

Photograph courtesy skitsch
Seen at Skitsch – Pagani & Perversi – Saily. Like a paper boat, Saily is a light designed by Pagani and Perversi for Skitsch.





Photograph courtesy Skitsch

Seen at Skitsch – Palomba Serafini – Cuir. A leather armchair designed by Palomba Serafini called Cuir.

Seen at Skitsch – Diego Grandi – Oppaicei Papaver Table. Oppaicei Papaver low ceramic table designed by Diego Grandi for Skitsch.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Driade. Xavier Lust looks through a shelf of his Virgo bookcase in anodized aluminum black anthracite designed for Driade.

Seen at Driade – Xavier Lust - Virgo and Source. Seen in one of the frescoed rooms of the Driade showroom in Via Manzoni, Xavier Lust’s Virgo bookcase, the structure and shelves are in mirror-polished stainless steel or in another version in anodized aluminum black anthracite and the Source table whose base and top are made in die-casting polished aluminum.

Seen at Driade. Naoto Fukasawa sits on a Zaza chair behind his Taku table.

Seen at Driade. Giuseppe Chigiotti sits on his Hoff leather sofa.


Seen at Driade. Oscar Tusquets sits on his Floating Sofa.

Seen at Driade. Marco Zanuso Jr. reflects in his small table Oyster.

Photograph courtesy Driade

Seen at Driade – Marco Zanuso Jr. – Oyster. One of the two Oyster tables designed by Marco Zanuso Jr. for Driade, the design can be traced back to the facets of a diamond and are enhanced by the “precious meta” stainless steel finish.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Coccinelle – Barbara Hulanicki window display. The Coccinelle boutique on Via Manzoni paid special tribute to the Milan Furniture Fair with this striking window display called;

Coccinelle/Barbara Hulanicki
Design meets fashion
at
Salone del Mobile

Contessanally tip: click on any photo to enlarge it.

Photo by Emilio Tremolada.

Seen at Nilufar – Martino Gamper – Gio Ponti Translated by Martino Gamper. Gio Ponti Translated by Martino Gamper is the name of this project of tables made by Martino Gamper for Nilufar. The green and white painted wood was salvaged from the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento designed by Gio Ponti in the 1960s. The whole room of the Nilufar Gallery housed the striking tables-scape installation.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Sawaya & Moroni. Daniel Libeskind and Paolo Moroni. Daniel Libeskind has designed for Sawaya & Moroni the Libeskind Tea and Coffee Set in sterling silver, a piazza around which the pieces in a tea service stand, like so many off-center works of architecture. This miniature city skyline reveals the unmistakable hand of the creator of Berlin’s inimitable Jewish Museum.

photograph courtesy Sawaya & Moroni

Sawaya & Moroni – Olafur Eliasson – Starbrick. This light was desgined by the artist, Olafur Eliasson and is called Starbrick. The basic structure of the Starbrick is a cube on whose six surfaces additional cubes have been placed at a 45° angle. These additional cubes serve as connectors so that several Starbricks can be conjoined. The Starbricks can be assembled into groups of any size and combination, developing in different directions.

Seen at Sawaya & Moroni. Mario Bellini, who is working on the Islamic wing of the Louvre, has reproduced the fluidity of that project’s pavilion roof, which looks like a fabric set gently atop of the structure, in two silver trays that go by the name of Mar Rosso and Mar Bianco (as seen here above).

Sawaya & Moroni – Mario Bellini – Mar Rosso. One of two silver trays designed by Mario Bellini for Sawaya & Moroni called Mar Rosso. The effect that looks like fabric is generated by a block of transparent or colored methacrylate that seems to drown in the folds of the silver. like a precious stone held in a wary metal setting, the colored Plexiglas reverberates its lights off the silver, creating a whirlwind of reflections.

Seen at Sawaya & Moroni. William Sawaya sitting on his table Linea.




Photograph courtesy Sawaya & Moroni

Sawaya & Moroni – William Sawaya – Punto, Linea and Doppia Linea tables. William Sawaya designed this series of tables for Sawaya & Moroni, made of resin and lacquered in iridescent colors, called Punto, Linea and Doppia Linea: a pattern based on locking irregular shapes together, as you would in a puzzle, to compose an unprecedented landscape of softy-profiled forms, resting on substantial, sharply cut, sculptural legs.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Stefano Tonchi and Rosella Bisazza.

Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Pilar Viladas, Cini Boeri and George Kordaris.



Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Reed Kram and Alice Rawsthorn.

Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. James and Marialaura Irvine.

Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Francesco Vezzoli.


Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Marc Newson.

Seen at the New York Times T Magazine Party. Adrian Joffe and Nick Vinson.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Seen at Pal Zilieri Boutique - Pasquale Leccese. Art collector and gallery owner, Pasquale Leccesse of Le Case D'Arte Di Pasquale Leccese, showed part of his collection of photographs and videos during the Milan Furniture Fair in the men’s boutique Pal Zilieri on the very central Via Manzoni. Pasquale is posing in front of a video by Peter Fischli and David Weiss called Busi (Kitty), 2001.

Seen at 10 Corso Como. Seen at 10 Corso Como these rubber shoes designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Zaha Hadid for Brazilian label Melissa. The futuristic shoes are eco-friendly and 100 % recyclable. Hadid told British Vogue, "I have 30 years of research on different areas of architecture and design and this was a very challenging project, not only in design, but on the technical side."

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

photograph courtesy Missoni

Missoni Home Collection – Cactus Garden. Rosita Missoni sits on a colorful pouf or table made from sculptural polyethylene, from the Missoni Home Collection, called Pitagora and designed by Cristiano Magnoni. Cactus Garden is the name of the new collection, hedges and screens thickset with cacti, the story continues in varicolored coral reef-like atmosphere of a garden oasis. Hints of light and shade, of sunny or aquatic tones for beach towels or for printed cotton satin on a matt/gloss checkered background, The indisputable elegance of sturdy chaises longues with multicolored corded seats reminiscent of the warp threads of a woven fabric. “The collection is called Cactus Garden because I love plants and nature. From it’s textile centric beginnings Missoni Home has moved into a full home collection, whose every detail exudes research, new ideas which translates into exclusive colors and forms.” Rosita explains.

photograph courtesy Missoni

Missoni Home Collection – Cactus Garden. Petal is sculptural polyethylene outdoor chair designed by Bendik Tarvin for Missoni Home Collection. The cushions on it are made from a cactus print from which the outdoor collection takes its name.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Spazio Rossana Orlandi – Shay Alkalay. Photographed at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi, without his partner, Yael Mer, budding star Shay Alkalay of Raw Edges poses with his sculpture Grove. Shay won the 2009 Elle Décor prize for Furniture for his Stack chest of drawers, designed for Established & Sons last year.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Spazio Rossana Orlandi – Piet Hein Eek. Superstar designer of waste wood Pier Hein Eek is back at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi.

Spazio Rosanna Orlandi – Piet Hein Eek. Shelf is a chair designed for a social center, which had no budget. The can be made downloading a plan from his website and can be made with simple tools.

Spazio Rosanna Orlandi – Piet Hein Eek. Unlike his more known pieces using wood waste from factories, Piet’s latest project is this mahogany wood Ping Pong table “I wanted to make a ping pong table in a new way.”

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Spazio Rossana Orlandi – Designhuis – Talent exhibition. The Designhuis Talent exhibition at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi was initiated and directed by Li Edelkoort, the Designhuis in Eindhoven seeks to become a local yet international platform for design, enabling young designers to emerge and their creative talents to be recognized and encouraged. Young talent invited by Rossana Orlandi, was a selection from the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven (from October 17-25, 2009), shown during Milan’s Furniture Fair gave international audiences a taste of the quality of European design education and the level of inspiration and vision encountered in the youngest emerging generations. Design director, Li Edelkoort is one of the most renowned trend forecasters in the world. In 2003 Time Magazine called her one of the 25 most influential people in the fashion industry and in 2004 she was listed among the most important people in design in Icon Magazine.

Spazio Rossana Orlandi – Designhuis – Talent exhibition. Laurens Manders presented Hide. “Actually Hide, the house, is the setting in which one of my projects is presented. The reason why it is not straight is because the house is sinking. He's sad! Inside I'm playing a blues song and showing the pop-up book I made showing the emotion visual way. Here's what was is 'A view on color' some time ago! While my girlfriend austerely turns the pages of a narrative pop-up book illustrating their demise, this rural romantic sits playing a folk song on an acoustic guitar, drowning his sorrows away following his lover's unfaithful ways. Live and unplugged, folkloric and poetic.” Laurens Manders.

Spazio Rossana Orlandi – Designhuis – Talent exhibition. Marinke Van Zandwijk presented Airbubles - glass in its most natural blown form, on simple, everyday apple crates. - in the Designhuis Talent exhibition at the Spazio Rosanna Orlandi. “A base of apple crates, once widely used in apple transport, now lacking any real function due to industrial progress. Pure bubbles, without deformation, all of them different. The various centers of gravity in the bubble determine their position. The direction in which the opening points. The basis of my work lies in the way in which people relate to each other and to everything around them. It is not about big global issues; it remains very personal. I carry out my work myself, reason why the making process is a rather organic process. A process in which I allow the glass, which often is the subject, to expand into an individual sculpture. The glass has to be in an environment in which it belongs. In this way, it also becomes the environment for my ideas and thoughts.” Marinke Van Zandwijk.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Triennale Design Museum – Senseware Exhibition. Japan’s artificial fibers are a new Senseware. In the stoneage, stone tools triggered human creativity. Similarly, the medium of paper, particularly in combination with printing technology, made a massive body of knowledge available, stimulating further creative desire. Imagine how the new artificial fibers that have evolved through the application of high technology will spur humans to a new wave of creation. Some of these fibers are as fine as individual cells, some are more pliant than rubber, and some are electrically conductive like metals. The exhibition Senseware at the Triennale Design Museum is an attempt to visualize some of the domains that can open up. Ideas were sought from architects, designers of all elks, automobile and electrical appliance manufacturers, media artists, and even a flower artist. “The exhibition represents an intersection of technology, materials, and talent, all oriented towards future manufacturing. Many senses will be stimulated here, but I very much hope that one thing every viewer will sense is a very real excitement for the future.” Explains the exhibition director, Kenya Hara, photographed above.

Senseware Exhibition –Kosuke Tsumura – Cocoon Cradle Mother Piece. Point of Design: “I was introduced to Felibendy as a fluffy cloud-like material that could be processed into blanket-like fiber tuned to a variety of different thicknesses and hardnesses. That encounter inspired two stories. First a shape like a cradle, with a depression in the center where a baby could be placed. Around it, I envisaged ivy-like reliefs to signify celebration of the child’s birth. The extra fabric on the outside can be used to cover the baby, or it perhaps rocks the cradle.”

“The second idea was of round pieces of fabric that could be linked together as desired. I used pieces to create clothing in the image of a mother. Some of the same pieces can be joined together to make cocoon cradle – a metaphor for the way that DNA provides a link from the past to the future.” Explains the fashion designer, Kosuke Tsumura of his installation called Cocoon Cradle Mother Piece in the Senseware exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum.

24Hrs @ MILAN FURNITURE FAIR

Triennale Design Museum – Prix Emile Hermes Competition. Always looking to the future, Hermès believes in the creative force of youth and wishes to support this creativity in the name of the House. The Prix Émile Hermès was born of the desire to discover new talent and nourish the creativity of young designers. The theme, Everyday Lightness, provides them with an opportunity to make an original and essential contribution to the ambitions of our company.

Pedal Car for Children. Mille, designed by David Seabra from Portugal is a pedal car, a true classic inspired by contemporary nomadic lifestyles. Mille is an everyday object that draws on movement, making it possible for children to travel, experience the pure pleasure of driving and enjoy city streets by car!


Bicycle saddle cover transformable into a saddle bag. Saddlebag, designed by Ian Mahaffy from Danemark is a bicycle saddle with a strong equestrian spirit. Simple to put on and a breeze to take off, the user always has on hand a dry seat and a convenient saddle bag that can be easily carried while cycling.